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Congressional Republicans have been hard at work cutting a few million in funding from NPR; but if they’d just played by the rules a decade ago, they could have saved at least $4 trillion, writes Walter Rodgers in the Christian Science Monitor. That's one estimate of how much the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have cost us, "wars that Congress putatively authorized but never formally declared." The Constitution's Article I, Section 8 makes it clear that only Congress “shall have the Power ... to declare war”—but over the past half-century, we’ve been sending our troops to battle with hardly a thought for the legislature, he writes. "And now it’s happening again, as the US began bombing Libya without a congressional declaration—or even a single hearing or debate."

“In Vietnam, and later Iraq, our presidents misled us while the stampede to go to war might have been averted with a serious congressional debate,” Rodgers notes. As for Afghanistan, some two-thirds of Americans now say it “hasn’t been worth fighting.” The Tea Party and its GOP allies were furious about President Obama’s stimulus spending. “I’m waiting to hear their shouts about the reckless cost to our national debt and national security of continuing to ignore Article I, Section 8.”

It seems discussion of the Constitution has become fodder for labeling people as Tea Party, Right Wing, Neo-Con.. Wackjobs etc.. etc.. A large portion of our fiscal and social problems are, as this article plainly shows, direct consequences of ignoring, diluting, vilifying, corporatizing, and blatantly disregarding the Constitution. This document was written by people who still had the sting of an overbearing govt ringing in their ears. They knew how people could be abused by govt, they understood first hand how a govt run amok ended up abusing its populace and now, 200 years later, the ringing all but gone, we kick it aside. Those who do not learn from history....

billcrawford

Mar 29, 2011 1:12 AM CDT

Time to get rid of Biden and Obama, they are destroying this country with all their extreme liberal friends and supporters, and what about the border! send Napalatono packing also, that women does not know how to tell the truth! Are you all so blind you cannot see? It is to bad that we have so many inbreeds in this country that could not find there backside with two hands and a road map. and where is GE's taxes, in Obama's pocket after he looses the 2012 election, I got money that says yes!! pay attention to this one as he sold out this country for this.